It seems some people start to get it - our hashrate increases after some bad luck instead of when we got a good luck ... I hope this will help crossing the 900TH line and show that, it's not a limit in any way, so here is a prediction: This round (currently 1h 8min) will last between 1h 30min and 2h 15min There will be at least 2 rounds below 3h in the next ~14h (by 13:00 UTC)

My apologies KNK, It appears I may have spoken to soon. (Technically that first block was pretty well past the 2h 15min mark )But you nailed the turn in luck prediction

I won't ask for donations but I will ask for help. And I won't give donations but I will help if I can.

Hello all,I've been creeping around the forum as a guest for about a month, thought it was time to register and say hello. I picked up a couple of the Block Erupter Cubes that people are starting to unload, and have them up and running steadily now. I'm considering this more of a hobby than anything, though I'd love to make back equipment costs at some point. Happy to be hashing away in the pool.

Does anyone have any resources for calculating the expected payout for a round? I was working on the 21 hour block a couple days ago, and my network gave out while I was at work. My cubes mined all but the last 3 hours, and my payout was flat 0. With the exponential scoring system and only about 65GH/s on such a long round, I suppose that it's possible that my score from earlier in the round would be negligible by the final hour. 21 hours sucks, but getting nothing for the work sucks even more. I'd like to check their numbers, but the temporal component of this has me a little stumped as to how to calculate the final scores to determine the ratio. What I know:

Last share for block 21737 submitted at 2014-02-25 10:19:18, while the block was found at 2014-02-25 13:31:15.Total shares My Shares Reward15542850503 1168448 0.00000000

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

On a side note, reading about bitcoin in the news every day, I can't help thinking of Fight Club. I keep mentally replaying that scene at the end where the narrator says to Marla, "You met me at a very strange time in my life," while all the buildings are crashing to the ground

Hello all,I've been creeping around the forum as a guest for about a month, thought it was time to register and say hello. I picked up a couple of the Block Erupter Cubes that people are starting to unload, and have them up and running steadily now. I'm considering this more of a hobby than anything, though I'd love to make back equipment costs at some point. Happy to be hashing away in the pool.

Does anyone have any resources for calculating the expected payout for a round? I was working on the 21 hour block a couple days ago, and my network gave out while I was at work. My cubes mined all but the last 3 hours, and my payout was flat 0. With the exponential scoring system and only about 65GH/s on such a long round, I suppose that it's possible that my score from earlier in the round would be negligible by the final hour. 21 hours sucks, but getting nothing for the work sucks even more. I'd like to check their numbers, but the temporal component of this has me a little stumped as to how to calculate the final scores to determine the ratio. What I know:

Last share for block 21737 submitted at 2014-02-25 10:19:18, while the block was found at 2014-02-25 13:31:15.Total shares My Shares Reward15542850503 1168448 0.00000000

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

On a side note, reading about bitcoin in the news every day, I can't help thinking of Fight Club. I keep mentally replaying that scene at the end where the narrator says to Marla, "You met me at a very strange time in my life," while all the buildings are crashing to the ground

If you have been creeping around the forum as a guest for about a month as you are saying, you must have read more than one post about zero reward after disconnecting before the round end. In fact, it takes significantly less than one hour for your score to become negligible. Otherwise the anti-hopping effect wouln't work. So posting your share counts has no sense at these circumstances.

Slush's pool37 minutes agoGood news, we have setup a new EU stratum server today as a replacement for the original one.

Now we need to wonder, would someone replace something if there wasn't a problem with it? Backstage issues, long blocks, yup...

I don't care because I'm swamped with work, haven't been checking often. Hopefully we see the problem lifted and shorter rounds start happening...

can you please show us with X's and O's how back end hardware causes long blocks.

my request of u is as loony as...

Yeah isn't it funny how they repair the server, then the rounds get short and our luck improves drastically and immediately?!

Why do I feel like so many people are in denial about the fact technical issues are very likely tied to our long blocks? Lot of IT guys in this thread or what? Afraid to consider exploration of the unknown grey area we cannot see? Try just for a moment to imagine like you don't have all the answers, and that maybe the number sold to us as "luck" does not represent factors of pure un-corrupted chance probability. Pay attention next time our luck takes a major nosedive, usually we get an announcement about a technical issue that was being resolved, or a DDOS attack being fended off. I'm fine with it, no plans to leave the pool, but I think too many people here reach for their rifles when people ask questions or make suggestions- what's the harm in a reasonable hypothesis about a backstage technical issue impacting our performance? People come here bitching about luck, but luck isn't truly "luck" if it's caused by a technical issue.

Anyways, now that they resolved the technical issues I am glad to see our "luck" is back to where it should be. On the other hand, if the server shits the bed then you could say it's bad luck, I mean for a server to just crap out like that, or the way the pool always chokes when we approach 900TH. In that sense maybe it is all luck, but if the system is stable backstage we seem to have some very nice runs, and maybe you could argue not having technical issue for a week is a matter of good luck. Happy? See, I argued both sides in terms I can even agree with.

Slush's pool37 minutes agoGood news, we have setup a new EU stratum server today as a replacement for the original one.

Now we need to wonder, would someone replace something if there wasn't a problem with it? Backstage issues, long blocks, yup...

I don't care because I'm swamped with work, haven't been checking often. Hopefully we see the problem lifted and shorter rounds start happening...

can you please show us with X's and O's how back end hardware causes long blocks.

my request of u is as loony as...

Yeah isn't it funny how they repair the server, then the rounds get short and our luck improves drastically and immediately?!

Why do I feel like so many people are in denial about the fact technical issues are very likely tied to our long blocks? Lot of IT guys in this thread or what? Afraid to consider exploration of the unknown grey area we cannot see? Try just for a moment to imagine like you don't have all the answers, and that maybe the number sold to us as "luck" does not represent factors of pure un-corrupted chance probability. Pay attention next time our luck takes a major nosedive, usually we get an announcement about a technical issue that was being resolved, or a DDOS attack being fended off. I'm fine with it, no plans to leave the pool, but I think too many people here reach for their rifles when people ask questions or make suggestions- what's the harm in a reasonable hypothesis about a backstage technical issue impacting our performance? People come here bitching about luck, but luck isn't truly "luck" if it's caused by a technical issue.

Anyways, now that they resolved the technical issues I am glad to see our "luck" is back to where it should be. On the other hand, if the server shits the bed then you could say it's bad luck, I mean for a server to just crap out like that, or the way the pool always chokes when we approach 900TH. In that sense maybe it is all luck, but if the system is stable backstage we seem to have some very nice runs, and maybe you could argue not having technical issue for a week is a matter of good luck. Happy? See, I argued both sides in terms I can even agree with.

It's just the oposite, in fact: People come here bitching about "reasonable hypotheses" that are no reasonable at all.

One certainty is that as the pool grows then so does the traffic into servers and it doesn't matter how much hashing goes on, it has to get to a server and 800-825TH seems to be the current 'lucky' number range.

No, the traffic problem is what vardiff solves.

Of course luck doesn't exist it is a convenient word to cover bad judgement, calculations or events we choose not to understand or have control of.

If you expect to earn X and you earn Y then a force has acted upon X to move its value to Y - an event, not luck. Either way your expectation/calculation was wrong.

I'm sorry, but you are an idiot.

Please don't push your ignorance again and again.(When OoC tells you that you're wrong, think twice and don't oppose. Because you can be sure you are wrong.)

Slush's pool37 minutes agoGood news, we have setup a new EU stratum server today as a replacement for the original one.

Now we need to wonder, would someone replace something if there wasn't a problem with it? Backstage issues, long blocks, yup...

I don't care because I'm swamped with work, haven't been checking often. Hopefully we see the problem lifted and shorter rounds start happening...

can you please show us with X's and O's how back end hardware causes long blocks.

my request of u is as loony as...

Yeah isn't it funny how they repair the server, then the rounds get short and our luck improves drastically and immediately?!

Why do I feel like so many people are in denial about the fact technical issues are very likely tied to our long blocks? Lot of IT guys in this thread or what? Afraid to consider exploration of the unknown grey area we cannot see? Try just for a moment to imagine like you don't have all the answers, and that maybe the number sold to us as "luck" does not represent factors of pure un-corrupted chance probability. Pay attention next time our luck takes a major nosedive, usually we get an announcement about a technical issue that was being resolved, or a DDOS attack being fended off. I'm fine with it, no plans to leave the pool, but I think too many people here reach for their rifles when people ask questions or make suggestions- what's the harm in a reasonable hypothesis about a backstage technical issue impacting our performance? People come here bitching about luck, but luck isn't truly "luck" if it's caused by a technical issue.

Anyways, now that they resolved the technical issues I am glad to see our "luck" is back to where it should be. On the other hand, if the server shits the bed then you could say it's bad luck, I mean for a server to just crap out like that, or the way the pool always chokes when we approach 900TH. In that sense maybe it is all luck, but if the system is stable backstage we seem to have some very nice runs, and maybe you could argue not having technical issue for a week is a matter of good luck. Happy? See, I argued both sides in terms I can even agree with.

It's just the oposite, in fact: People come here bitching about "reasonable hypotheses" that are no reasonable at all.

Kindly tell me, who is to judge if a hypothesis is reasonable or not? I've seen a lot of people discussing poor luck, and then anyone that dares mention the possibility that our drastic dips in luck may be because of special-cause events, like technical issues, people freak out and can't handle it or something. You tell me, am I imagining things where most of our 15+ hour blocks are followed by some type of announcement of a technical issue and then an immediate improvement in the round times and luck values? I see it happen almost every time. It makes sense the issues get announced after, because Slush doesn't want people bailing off the pool if they learn about a tech issue.

Few weeks ago, maybe even a whole month, there was an announcement about the server jamming up just shy of 900th. The whole network has grown and we are still under 900th, in fact we've been between 750-850th for over a month, why is that? When we get close to 900th I'm starting to wonder if the server craps out, otherwise why aren't we there yet? Last time we almost kissed 900th the whole server went down, and we had a series of long blocks... Miners leave on their own during the long blocks and I presume the issue almost compounds in that way, but the longer we are held under 900th the more likely we can expect average round times to get longer as the rest of the network and other pools are getting bigger.

One certainty is that as the pool grows then so does the traffic into servers and it doesn't matter how much hashing goes on, it has to get to a server and 800-825TH seems to be the current 'lucky' number range.

No, the traffic problem is what vardiff solves.

Of course luck doesn't exist it is a convenient word to cover bad judgement, calculations or events we choose not to understand or have control of.

If you expect to earn X and you earn Y then a force has acted upon X to move its value to Y - an event, not luck. Either way your expectation/calculation was wrong.

I'm sorry, but you are an idiot.

Please don't push your ignorance again and again.(When OoC tells you that you're wrong, think twice and don't oppose. Because you can be sure you are wrong.)

I'd actually like to hear more of what he has to say, and I don't see a need for your criticism. It's a forum and open discussion isn't for any member to regulate like this. That whole "think twice and don't oppose" comment you made, reminds me of someone I once know, real toxic bastard type... Seriously, why try to bully people out of presenting ideas?

One certainty is that as the pool grows then so does the traffic into servers and it doesn't matter how much hashing goes on, it has to get to a server and 800-825TH seems to be the current 'lucky' number range.

No, the traffic problem is what vardiff solves.

Of course luck doesn't exist it is a convenient word to cover bad judgement, calculations or events we choose not to understand or have control of.

If you expect to earn X and you earn Y then a force has acted upon X to move its value to Y - an event, not luck. Either way your expectation/calculation was wrong.

I'm sorry, but you are an idiot.

Please don't push your ignorance again and again.(When OoC tells you that you're wrong, think twice and don't oppose. Because you can be sure you are wrong.)

I'd actually like to hear more of what he has to say, and I don't see a need for your criticism. It's a forum and open discussion isn't for any member to regulate like this. That whole "think twice and don't oppose" comment you made, reminds me of someone I once know, real toxic bastard type... Seriously, why try to bully people out of presenting ideas?

He had presented & repeated his bad idea for several times. He has been correcred more than once by someone who differs from him in that he understands the subject. He didn't stop bitching.If you read the forum regularly, you should know already.

[edit]And, please, don't tear parts of sentences out of the context. I'm pretty sure that my two sentences in the parentheses at the end of my post make very good sense when taken in whole.

[edit2] Your reminiscences are your problem, not mine... (And when they are based on your tearing out of context, they are really no problem for me.)In fact, your reminiscences talk about you, not about me...

I'd actually like to hear more of what he has to say, and I don't see a need for your criticism. It's a forum and open discussion isn't for any member to regulate like this. That whole "think twice and don't oppose" comment you made, reminds me of someone I once know, real toxic bastard type... Seriously, why try to bully people out of presenting ideas?

As for gourmet, I understand where he's coming from. The question of "luck" get raised every ten pages or so, and someone has to answer them. Sometimes it takes longer to get the idea across, and it get's a little frustrating because I have (or someone else has) had to explain this before, many times. If the blame lies anywhere, it's in me being a poor teacher.

I should probably write up something permanent somewhere that just addresses pool luck, and that people can link to whenever luck gets raised.

I'd actually like to hear more of what he has to say, and I don't see a need for your criticism. It's a forum and open discussion isn't for any member to regulate like this. That whole "think twice and don't oppose" comment you made, reminds me of someone I once know, real toxic bastard type... Seriously, why try to bully people out of presenting ideas?

I replied to binja9: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1976.msg5418642#msg5418642

As for gourmet, I understand where he's coming from. The question of "luck" get raised every ten pages or so, and someone has to answer them. Sometimes it takes longer to get the idea across, and it get's a little frustrating because I have (or someone else has) had to explain this before, many times. If the blame lies anywhere, it's in me being a poor teacher.

I should probably write up something permanent somewhere that just addresses pool luck, and that people can link to whenever luck gets raised.

You're not poor teacher at all. You're one of the good teachers not only of this forum. One of the best ones, I'd say. There are just some bad learners. :-)

(And for anybody who would try to tell that there are no bad pupils, just bad teachers: No. That's a cheap populism. There are both good and poor teachers and both good and bad pupils.)